


The Father Paradox

by The_art_of_the_fangirl



Category: Naruto
Genre: Child Murder, Murder, Paradox, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24838123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_art_of_the_fangirl/pseuds/The_art_of_the_fangirl
Summary: Hatake Kakashi steps through a hole in the Universe and ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kudos: 47





	The Father Paradox

**Author's Note:**

> Listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjlu9RRHcbE) for the best experience.

Hatake Kakashi stands at the edge of the world.

To his left, Sakura. Darling Sakura. Who he should have paid attention to. Who he should have pushed when he had the chance. He regrets not being able to call himself her sensei; he doesn’t deserve the title. 

To his right, Naruto. Golden Naruto. Kakashi wishes he could go back and look after the boy, like Naruto’s father looked after him. He turned a blind eye to the cruelty of the village, throwing himself into his work instead of doing what was right. Looking at the man he’s become, Kakashi questions whether he really had anything to do with it in the first place.

In front of them is a hole in the universe. It calls to them. Some botched abomination drawn in the blood of dead men. A seal to go back in time. To change it all. 

The demon Kaguya chases them, roaring and screeching as she brings the sky down on top of them. They are out of time and Kakashi makes sure his pupils go first. 

He draws a kunai and stares down the beast that razes acres with just a single step. 

“Ladies first, Sakura!” Naruto screams. His eyes are red now, never the ocean blue that reminded Kakashi of his beloved father. She steps through and the gaping tear wobbles. “Sensei, you’ll be right behind me, won’t you?” The blond checks. 

“Go, Naruto.” Kakashi orders. 

And then, Kakashi is the last man on Earth and he’s staring down his destruction. 

Kaguya tears a chasm through the ground.

He steps through the gate. 

* * *

The first thing Kakashi remembers is throwing up. He volts out of his bed, tumbling to his knees in a mess of sheets and limbs and empties his bowels to the wood below. 

Eventually, he gathers his wits enough to stop dry heaving. He is in a bedroom. It reminds him of his family home. There are clothes in the wardrobe. Taking something at random, he pulls it on and looks at a mirror. 

It’s him. He looks like he did when he was five, before his father, well. He forgoes the mask this time. He can’t seem to find one anyway, which he finds odd. But, time travel is the epitome of _odd_ , so he doesn’t question it.

Leaving the house, he stares down an unfamiliar Konoha. He looks to the Hokage mountain and two faces glare back. He’s early then. Kakashi wonders where Naruto and Sakura ended up, if he thinks this is _early_. Perhaps Naruto will have finally seen Uzushio in its beauty, before the fall. Perhaps Sakura can live happily this time, enjoying the finer things in life.

Going by the lack of hitai-ate in his bedroom, Kakashi hopes to _Kaguya_ that he’s made the right choice by taking himself to the academy. He walks himself in and they call him Kakashi, greeting him with smiles. 

It’s because of this fact, that he doesn’t understand the gravity of his existence, right here, right now. 

Hatake Kakashi graduates from the Ninja Academy. Once, when he was five–turning six. Again, when he is seven, deciding to try slow down this time. 

He meets the Sannin in their youth. They are younger than him and call him Senpai. He stares the trio down and cannot comprehend the concept. 

Orochimaru, who would later experiment on children, desert the village and attempt to raze it to the ground. 

Jiraiya, who succumbed to the three taboos of a ninja. Women, alcohol and money. Jiraiya is a child who will one day write porn that Kakashi enjoys. It is a disturbing thought. 

And Tsunade. The one that got away. The medic that would become afraid of blood, who he would salute and proclaim _his Hokage_. She looks up at him in heroship and it feels horribly misplaced. 

It still doesn’t click, even as the years go by and he ascends the ranks again. 

Hatake Kakashi is twenty and they call him The White Fang, and it nags at him. Because that’s _not_ _right_. His father was The White Fang, not him. 

And then it clicks. 

Hatake Sakumo doesn’t exist here, because Kakashi replaced him. He’s an anomaly in time and space, not meant to be here. If his father never lives, then Kakashi is never born. 

When had Kakashi been conceived–the first time? He was born on September 15th, fourteen years before the Kyuubi Attack. Meaning he was conceived around January of the same year. His father was born fourty-one years before the attack, not that he lived to see it. 

Fourty-one minus fourteen was twenty seven. Kakashi is twenty. So, in theory, Kakashi has a maximum of seven years before his supposed conception. In theory, when that time comes, Kakashi would cease to exist. 

Seven Years.

He needs a plan. 

The plan is less of a step by step of _How to save the world_ and more of a hit list. 

The first to go needed to be Orochimaru. Kaguya knows that man is more trouble than he’s worth.

After that, he would find those goddamn kids from Rain Country before Jiraiya can even lay his eyes on them. 

Lastly, he would find Madara, if at all possible. 

In that order, kill Orochimaru, go rogue, kill the Rain children, search for Madara.

For all that Kakashi wanted to take his time in this life, he didn’t have the luxury now. 

Killing Orochimaru is anticlimactic. The ~~man~~ teen still lives in the village in a crappy apartment on the edge of town. He is not yet known for anything; Kakashi isn’t even sure he’s signed the Snake Contract yet. He kills him quickly in the dead of the night. Orochimaru doesn’t even wake before his throat is slashed. Kakashi waits for rigor mortis to set in before he leaves.

Konoha proclaim him a traitor and send hunter-nin after hunter-nin after him. Kakashi did not spend years running from a god to be taken down by the likes of _men_. He evades them most of the time, and kills them the rest. Soon enough, Konoha stops sending pigs to the slaughter.

It takes him a solid two years to finally find the trio in rain. He forgot they might not have been born yet. Only having the names Nagato, Konan and Yahiko (that last one being pulled from the dredges of his memory) to go by, he travelled from village to village, again and again. Until, finally, their names showed up in a town registry. 

Finding them is easy. Killing them is not. He stares them down in their individual cots, blade at the ready and questions everything. Is this what he is reduced to? A child-murderer? They still have families, the Second Shinobi War having not started yet. Kakashi wishes he had more time, so that he could save them, instead of culling them before they can even really live. He has to close his eyes when he brings the blade down on their tiny bodies. 

* * *

Three and a half years into his time as a missing nin, three and a half to go. 

He cannot find Madara. No matter how far he goes; back to Kannabi bridge before it’s built, to the redwood forests of Konoha (far too close to home), to Kiri, Iwa, Kumo. As far as Kakashi can tell, the man is truly dead. Kakashi hopes either Naruto or Sakura got to him. 

In his paranoia, he writes a book. Within it, he hides messages in code between sultry descriptions of a woman Kakashi wishes he could have met in his youth. They warn of the future. He can only hope someone will understand. 

He arranges for the book to be published on January 1st, the year he was supposed to be conceived and calls it _Icha Icha_ , spending his remaining time on a beach in Wind Country. 

Hatake Kakashi sits at the edge of the world, watching turquoise waves crash and splutter into the Earth. 

And then he doesn’t. 

He is never found. 

  
  



End file.
